August Pi i Sunyer, an inspiration for the progress of medicine
Next Tuesday, 11 March, at 4.00 pm, the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia (RAMC) will host the presentation of the August Pi i Sunyer Fund, on the scientific legacy of the prestigious doctor, who contributed to the progress of medicine and biomedical research in Catalonia. The rector of the University of Barcelona, Joan Guàrdia, and the president of the RAMC, Josep Antoni Bombí, will attend the ceremony, which can be followed live online.
The session will open with the speech “Records”, by Maria Teresa Pi-Sunyer and Francesc Xavier Pi-Sunyer. The institutional ceremony will also include speeches by Arcadi Gual, professor emeritus of Physiology at the UB and rector of the Abad Oliba University (“Una personalitat polièdrica”); Elías Campo, professor at the UB’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and director of IDIBAPS “L’actualitat del seu llegat”), and Teresa Cabré, president of the Institute for Catalan Studies (“L’empremta en l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans i la Societat Catalana de Biologia”).
Then, Rector Guàrdia will speak on “L’inici de la recerca biomèdica a la Universitat” (The beginning of biomedical research at the University), while Josep Antoni Bombí, president of the RAMC and former dean of the UB’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, will give the speech “La petjada a la Reial Acadèmia de Medicina de Catalunya” (The footprint in the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia). Finally, the event will be closed by the Catalan Minister of Health, Olga Pané.
Next Tuesday, 11 March, at 4.00 pm, the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia (RAMC) will host the presentation of the August Pi i Sunyer Fund, on the scientific legacy of the prestigious doctor, who contributed to the progress of medicine and biomedical research in Catalonia. The rector of the University of Barcelona, Joan Guàrdia, and the president of the RAMC, Josep Antoni Bombí, will attend the ceremony, which can be followed live online.
The session will open with the speech “Records”, by Maria Teresa Pi-Sunyer and Francesc Xavier Pi-Sunyer. The institutional ceremony will also include speeches by Arcadi Gual, professor emeritus of Physiology at the UB and rector of the Abad Oliba University (“Una personalitat polièdrica”); Elías Campo, professor at the UB’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and director of IDIBAPS “L’actualitat del seu llegat”), and Teresa Cabré, president of the Institute for Catalan Studies (“L’empremta en l’Institut d’Estudis Catalans i la Societat Catalana de Biologia”).
Then, Rector Guàrdia will speak on “L’inici de la recerca biomèdica a la Universitat” (The beginning of biomedical research at the University), while Josep Antoni Bombí, president of the RAMC and former dean of the UB’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, will give the speech “La petjada a la Reial Acadèmia de Medicina de Catalunya” (The footprint in the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia). Finally, the event will be closed by the Catalan Minister of Health, Olga Pané.
August Pi i Sunyer: medicine, polítics and culture
August Pi i Sunyer (Barcelona, 1879 - Mexico, 1965) was born into a prestigious family of doctors, he was the son of Carolina Sunyer and Jaume Pi Sunyer. His father, a doctor and professor of General Pathology at the UB, was considered one of the creators of Catalan scientific medicine. August Pi i Sunyer graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Barcelona in 1899 and obtained his PhD the following year at the University of Madrid. After beginning his research work at the Municipal Bacteriological Laboratory of Barcelona, directed by Ramon Turró, he was awarded the Chair on Physiology at the University of Seville (1904) and, later, at the UB (1915), he created the Institute of Physiology of Barcelona, a real driving force in the scientific progress of medicine.
A member of the Institute for Catalan Studies and the first president of the Catalan Society of Sciences, Pi i Sunyer excelled in the field of physiological research and contributed to the consolidation of Catalan as a language of scientific use. He presided over the Royal Academy of Medicine and also the 2nd Catalan University Conference. In 1931, during the Republic, Pi i Sunyer played an active part in the Statute Committee of the future Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Towards the end of the Universitat Autònoma during the war, August Pi i Sunyer temporarily held the position of rector in the absence of Rector Bosch Gimpera. Committed to Catalan politics, he was a member of the Spanish Cortes Generales on the Republican candidacy for the Figueres constituency during the 1916, 1918 and 1920 legislatures. As a result of the political repression that the dictatorship brought about, August Pi i Sunyer went into exile in Venezuela until his death in Mexico in 1965.